President Kagame has not only mastered the language of the West of divide and rule but has further gone another step of lying in all his political life.  Kagame has turned everything in Rwanda to be seen through the prism of the genocide, a hundred apocalyptic days that wiped out 800,000 men, women, children and babies and left no family unscarred. As a guerrilla commander  who led  his former RPA to the capital, Kigali,  Kagame without even mentioning his comrades, he boasts  of having single -handedly stopped the nightmare and, he calls all his former comrades  worthless(Ibigarasha). It is in this regard that many people, who don’t know his true colors say, he tilted the scales more towards reconciliation than revenge. “I’m not sure Rwanda would exist if not for him right now,” one Kagame’s admirer said.

Idd amin dada

Paul Kagame 2When the Rwandan Head of State attended the military graduation ceremony in Nyakinama Military Academy he categorically stated that those who think that he can talk to his enemies are day dreamers. The Rwandan leader described the calls of his Tanzanian counterpart to negotiate with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) as “utter nonsense.”

This is not only a deliberate distortion of facts but also deliberate demonization of the Tanzanian Head of State. It is on record that President Kagame has been and is still in bed with people who did not only commit genocide but also those with genocide ideology.   Kagame is a man who does not need to be told the truth because he does not tell the truth.   President Kikwete was honest with Kagame and his advice was in good faith, but why Kagame does not want to negotiate with his political opponents?

The answer is not hard to find, Kagame has politicized the Rwandan tragedy that cost almost one million people, and he can bargain cheaply with labeling people genociders and give them little or nothing. If Rucagu was to be bargained  with negotiations he would have been  very expensive  or Gen. Rwarakabije, therefore  a post will be enough and  amnesty  to bring these guys from the jungles of Congo if Kagame uses threats and intimidation that  they all committed genocide.

Although this might be a good argument for a short term, it is a miscalculation of the principles of a lasting peace for a country that has been marred by ethnic instability for the last 5 decades since its independence from Belgium. As I have mentioned above the collapse of the East African Community in 1977 was largely on the cold blood that existed between President Id Amin of Uganda and the former Tanzanian Leader Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.

The new Community now has an expanded five Partner States from the original three that founded the original Community in 1967 and which collapsed in 1977, a lot has been said on the reasons for  the collapse of the East African Community but the Community  with a bigger economic area with a Common Market, moving towards a Monetary Union and ultimately a Political Federation, the  challenges are numerous compared to those that existed in 1970s when the block was  managed by only 3 States and a low population. It could be assumed that in the course of this progress, the EAC has drawn lessons from successful regional economic communities elsewhere, but apparently, inadvertently or otherwise, there seems to have been no effort made to draw lessons from itself: What does the old EAC teach the revived EAC?

As I have mentioned above many political commentators have advanced various reasons for the collapse of the old EAC. These have ranged from political differences especially between Uganda and Tanzania (though the actual quarrel and eventual war peaked in 1978-79, long after the EAC had collapsed). It could be argued that President Idi Amin behaved in the same way like the President Kagame when President Nyerere told him to negotiate with his political opponents who were in Tanzania at the time. President Idi Amin instead called him a woman that he could even marry. In the same way President Kagame has called his counterpart that he suffers from the genocide ideology. “Rwanda to hold talks with the FDLR is utter nonsense and comes from a point of ignorance. He added that if the comment was an ideological problem then it should stay with FDLR sympathizers.”

But if President Kagame cannot talk to the FDLR, because according to him they have been the part of the genocide movement, why can’t he talk to his political opponents who include even his former comrades who have fallen apart with him? Is he waiting for them to take arms so that he can talk to them? This is what President Kikwete was talking about, but because the Rwandan President wants to draw sympathy from both domestic and international community as usual his excuse is the genocide ideology, how long will the president keep fooling Rwandans and the international community?

The list of the people who were murdered  by IdI Amin include the Archbishop Janani Luwum of the Church of Uganda  in the same way Kagame ordered the brutal murder of the  Rwandan Bishops  who had sought  sanctuary in  Kabgayi  during the war in 1994, they have not been  given a decent burial they deserve. Murdered along with the archbishop was Internal Affairs Minister, Charles Oboth Ofumbi and Lands Minister, Lt. Col Erinayo Oryema. These were just a few of the prominent ones.  The list of  the murders and disappearances of many Rwandans  on the orders of Kagame is  endless, friends, comrades and  political opponents have been  killed  yet the international community is silent  and instead they talk about good  roads and clean City, these so called developments should  not be traded with Rwandan blood, Human Rights and Dignity. The Rwandan Military Intelligence (DMI) commands the right to life and death in the same way Amin’s State Research Bureau commanded the right to life and death. Kagame should listen to other people’s views lest he will fall in the same pit like his predecessors.

 

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.